Top 25 Cal Ripken, Jr. Quotes

By far, the best moment of my big league career was when I caught the last out at the World Series.

When you’re in the day-to-day grind, it just seems like it’s another step along the way. But I find joy in the actual process, the journey, the work. It’s not the end. It’s not the end event.

I don’t mind being described as vanilla in certain ways.

I think Nick Markakis is a perennial All-Star, and nobody knows about him. I think people are learning about how good he is.

I stayed attached to baseball through the kids and through minor league baseball, and I’m very satisfied with the schedule it allows me to have, which means I’m home until my kids go off to college. I value that time.

There have been times in my life when I felt compelled to write things down as a matter of therapy, but whatever I kept about those days, I shredded. It was too personal.

When things happen to you in the worst way, you live with it, you go over it, you think, ‘What else could I have done?’

Sometimes I think sportsmanship is a little bit forgotten in place of the individual attention.

One person’s going to win, and everybody else is going to not win. So let’s not feel like we’re losers. Let’s utilize the cultural opportunities, get to know the other players on the other team, look around you, enjoy your world series.

Even though my dad was a manager in the minor leagues, I still traveled around with him and saw it from the field out. Now, as an owner, you’re kind of looking from the whole baseball activity from outside in, from a fan’s perspective.

I’ve been asked to interview for many managing jobs, and I never said yes because I was never serious about it, and I thought it would be wrong to go through that process.

You could be a kid for as long as you want when you play baseball.

I had trouble with my temper all the way through the minor leagues.

When you are away from the game and busy with other areas, you realize that the world does not revolve around baseball.

Your job as a baseball player is to come to the park ready to play every day, and the manager, it’s his job to make those decisions about who plays.

My approach to every game was to try to erase the games that were before and try to focus on the game at hand.

My dad was part of the Oriole way. I think he was there 14 years in the minor leagues; I think seven of those years, they had the same people in place. So it was about continuity. It was about stability.

I had aches and pains when I played. No player is ever 100 percent, 80 percent, 85 percent. Guys that play 158 or 162 or 145, we are all in the same boat.

I had one of my best years in 1991; I was 31. I made a renewed effort to work harder. I got better at my diet. I paid attention to how much sleep I got. I was always someone of routine. I became more strict.

I lived the baseball life as a kid, with my dad in it. And I lived the baseball life as an adult, because I was in it. When I retired, I wanted the opportunity to be a little bit more flexible and home-based for my kids.

Baseball can be slow in many ways. The action starts with when the pitcher delivers the ball. But the action really starts when the crack of the bat happens.

I never understood that when I heard people retire – they said they missed being around the guys. I don’t have a need to make a play in the ninth inning of a game anymore. But being on the inside and being part of a team is something that you really do value and you really do miss.

When you’re an athlete and you play every day and are conditioning yourself every year, the aging is gradual.

I did make a choice when I got away from baseball to be there to get my kids off to college.

The older you get, the things that you thought you wanted to do when you were younger, you’re checking them off your list because you no longer want to them.